4 Then Johnny sent a regiment,
Big words and looks to bandy,
Whose martial band, when near the land,
Play'd "Yankee doodle dandy,"
"Yankee doodle-keep it up!
"Yankee doodle dandy!
"I'll poison with a tax your cup,
"Yankee doodle dandy."

5 A long war then they dad; in which
John was at last defeated-
And "Yankee doodle" was the march
To which his troops retreated.
Cute Jonathan to see them fly,
Could not restrain his laughter:
"That tune," said he, "suits to a T,
I'll sing it ever after."

go.

6 With "Hail Columbia!" it is sung, In chorus full and hearty

On land and main we breathe the strain,
John made for nis tea-party.
"Yankee doodle-ho!-ha!-he!
"Yankee doodle dandy-

"We kept the tune, but not the tea,
"Yankee doodle dandy!"

7 No matter how we rhyme the words,
The music speaks them handy,

And where's the fair can't sing the air, Of "Yankee doodle dandy!" "Yankee doodle-firm and true"Yankee doodle dandy, "Yankee doodle, doodle doo! "Yankee doodle dandy."

This is a page from Vol. II., American History Stories.

There are many other unique features in these famous Stories.

A hundred thousand copies have been called for.

Can you afford to let another year pass without introducing them into your schools?

AMERICAN HISTORY STORIES.

BY MARÁ L. PRATT.

Vols. I, II, III, IV. Illus. Price, 36c.

These and the "Leaves from Nature" described below, are the gems of our series.

Levi Seeley, Ph.D.,

Prof. of Education, Lake Forest
University, Illinois.

Another number of Mrs. Kelly's charming "LEAVES FROM NATURE'S STORY-BOOK" series has come to hand. In a delightful and entertaining way the child is taken to the very midst of life among the insects whose habits and manner of living are described so vividly that the child cannot fail to be interested as well as informed. These books will certainly find a welcome in houses and schools, wherever there are young child

ren.

J. H. Ecob, D.D., Albany, N.Y. I have put "NATURE'S STORYBOOK," to the best possible test. I called my children, ranging in ages from five to twelve, to hear some new stories. The house is full of children's literature, so that these young readers have grown quite fastidious. But their eagerness in these true stories, nature's own, was something most delightful to witness. Before we knew it we were all telling stories of what we had seen, and what began as a literary experiment ended in an hour of true enjoyment and profit.

262 Wabash Avenue, Chicago.

Volume XI

POPULAR EDUCATOR

PUBLISHED BY THE

EDUCATIONAL PUBLISHING COMPANY 50 BROMFIELD STREET, BOSTON

NEW YORK OFFICE, 70 FIFTH AVENUE

WESTERN OFFICE, 262 WABASH AVENUE, CHICAGO

Published Monthly, September to June, Inclusive

Subscription: $1.00 per year Single copies 10 cents Entered at the Post Office, Boston, Mass., as Second Class Matter

A New Cabinet Office.

Senator Pfeffer, of Kansas, may be or may not be all right on the Silver question, but his bill recently introduced in the Senate, proposing that a National Department of Education shall be created, with a Secretary at its head who shall be a member of the Cabinet, is a step forward. Fewer battle ships and more school houses is what the Republic wants; not men in serried ranks, but the happy, intelligent faces of boys and girls are the best bulwarks against the perils of the future. So let Commissioner Harris be a Cabinet officer.

Ph.D.

The Congress on Higher Education at Chicago appointed a committee to invent some way by which the significance of the degrees of Doctor of Philosophy and Doctor of Science may be protected. It seems that in the race after titles that of Ph.D. is the most sought after. It is proposed that hereafter the title be earned. We would suggest that an excellent way to stop "the rage" would be for him who may be fortunate enough to receive the title to lay it away among his scented handkerchiefs. If our learned friends would imitate the modest Quaker and insist that their names should be written without any caudal appendage, there would not be so many cod-fish "educators thirsting after Ph.D's.

One Difference.

While there must be, under present conditions, more or less grading of pupils, it will not do for us to blind our eyes to the evils that are present and more or less influential. The wise teacher will keep them closeted if possible; but it is not always possible. The Educational Record, a Canadian journal, sees in the graded schools of that country the same tendency to mechanism of work and consequent stultification of mind that we see in the graded schools of our own country. “I have often by a series of questions," says the editor, intentionally misleading and designed to test the firmness of their grasp on Truth, made pupils in graded schools repudiate well established principles of geometry. I have rarely succeeded in catechising a country boy out of a tenable position unless embarassment had weakened his powers of defense." And the whole story is placed in a nut-shell when the writer adds, "The rude coastingsled as it speeds down the rough country hill-side is an emblem of purpose crystallized by industry. The handsome sleigh which glides along our side-walks has planted no germ of creative purpose in the child who guides it."

The New Philosophy.

Number 3

We are inclined to think that Supt. Gilbert, of the St. Paul schools, is right when he declares that the Herbartian philosophy offers the best solution of the "educational problem;" but the trouble is (and alas! that it is so) this philosophy is not convertible into a machine. As he well observes, "we are already seeing little machines and big machines, complicated machines and simple machines constructed by the machine builders to illustrate and hold fast co-ordination." The fact is, a good deal of what may be called business economy would be useless without the machine. And yet all true teaching, that which has for its purpose what, according to Herbart, is the prime aim of education, namely, "the development of character," becomes lifeless when crystallized into form. It is only the narrow, the ignorant, the dull, who are willing to sit quiescent and turn monotonously the creaking crank. To simply find some study as the center of the child's education," will in the end, result in mechanism quite as pernicious as that which now dominates much of the present teaching. We want first in the school room the teaching instinct. As well go into the slums of a great city and preach temperance and judgment to come when there is no bread or' butter in the home and the children are starving, as to have Herbartian philosophy, or any other in the school room, and neither inspiration nor quickness of apprehension in the teacher. As Supt. Gilbert has it, "The new education must not be a method nor a machine, but a spirit and an înspiration."

Yes and No.

The Chairman of the Bradford (England) School Board has returned from a "sojourn in the United States" and by request given the "results of his observations." His remarks show that his eyes were open and his judgment excellent. Our readers will be pleased to read that the gentleman attributed the high social status of the female teachers "largely to the concentration and devotion to their work which they exhibited." "They showed," he says, "a broad, patriotic, and thoroughly enthusiastic feeling for the work of education, which teachers in England would do well to copy." He further says, speaking of the superintendents of schools, "Under each school board or body of commissioners, there is a man termed the Superintendent through whom everything is managed." "He is generally,” he said, a “highly educated and well-trained man, and he is responsible for the progress of education in the town, the Board only acting through him." Here we think we observe a slight error. That our Superintendents are well-trained and educated, there is no doubt, but that everything is managed through him, or that the Board acts only through him-well, we wish it were so. But we must speak the truth. The School Boards in this country, with here and there an honorable exception, still sit on the seat and drive. The Superintendent still sits in the rear, getting down now and then to grease the axles and see that the harness is in order.

Mechanical Examinations.

The objections to written examinations, as generally carried on, are ably summed up by a Western writer, Lewis Freeman, in a pamphlet of some twelve pages, which has been sent to our table. The essay is entitled "Mechanism in Education," and is an argument at once logical and in a style agreeable to the cultivated mind. At the end, after calling the reader's attention to the fact that since the mountainous heap of knowledge laid out for the teacher is to be tunnelled through by drill, a metropolitan police system is necessary in the large places to watch both teacher and pupils to see that they dig and delve untiringly; he enumerates categorically the evils which this police machine" produce, and its effect as a demoralizer of education.

FIRST. These examinations are all addressed to a system of formalized and drilled in knowledge, put into definition and set phrase, necessitating only verbal memorized answers, thus destroying the breadth, vitality and freedom of the teacher's work. SECOND. To these examinations is affixed a numerical valuation of knowledge, a per cent. system which is the bane of all true education. Its tendency is toward drudgery, narrow work, brutality, cheating, jealousy, loss of temper, want of self-control, nervous irritability and selfishness on the part of the teacher; it harms character building, prostrates health and prevents true education being carried on.

Questions

THIRD. These examinations are stated and general. They give a definite time for drill, and the fever of unrest. are out of the course, substitutions and alterations are illegally made, and the pupil is at the mercy of the least change of phrase from his teacher's way of statement. The standards of estimating work are different, being frequently as much as twenty per cent. apart, and the marking often loose and unconscientious. Numberless temptations toward a deflection from the right are offered. Accidental interruptions of work, epidemics of sickness and absence, change of teachers, differences in nationality local position and home culture, together with other causes, make these general examinations, especially as respects figures, almost valueless, while the time and labor misspent is a detriment to solid work.

FOURTH.-These stated, comparative, per cented examinations become a mere mechanism of drudgery and tricks, a kind of slight of hand dexterity, not unlike the juggler's who swallows ten knives. We have thus, blank books filled with little phrase definitions of what requires vivid portraiture; concert recitations where the lazy work with the lips and not with the brain; the use of old school reports, question books, past examination papers, preciously kept for their narrow grooved ways of putting things; the hunting up of "tips," "pointers," and "probable" questions; experiences of adroitness in "catch" and mechanical work. Well has an able educator called this teaching, "preparing wares for the educational market." The teacher is a drudge in this grind and the child the victim. The nervous strain of this cramming breaks down the health of both.

FIFTH.-These percent examinations present direct temptations toward deceit, cheating, injustice and fraud on the part of teachers and pupils. The pressure of competition induces a wish to get rid of every child of poor capacity. Instead of his friend and well wisher, the teacher becomes a judge and an enemy; and the school life of the pupil, instead of being a joy in doing what little he can, is a misery because he cannot equal others, or come up to a high pressure standard. The teacher's anxiety about the low marks of these poor pupils culminates in a desire to have the pupils reduced to a lower grade, or to have them quit school. If there were no results to threaten her, she would gladly bear with them and let them get what good they could. Numberless

pupils have been pushed out of school in this way, who if the passion for results had not been so active, would have secured more education.

SIXTH. A large increase of corporal punishment is another effect of these examinations. The tired overworked teacher, goaded by the harrowing apprehension of failure in the race for competition, becomes nervous and loses self-control and judgment. The dull boy fails to come to time in figures, and the teacher, in her own interest, punishes him ostensibly for laziness, but really, for incompetency.

SEVENTH.-Those examinations destroy broad teaching. The definite number of questions, their narrow character, their adaption to numerical valuation, and their leaning toward formal and prepared answers, all force the teacher into rut work. Explanation, analysis, vivid description, pictorial illustration, incidental interesting knowledge, are all wasted here. Only" what will pay" in per cents is taught in the baldest and most succint form.

EIGHTH.-They limit the amount of work which otherwise conld easily be done, and thus reduce a great waste of time and effort. Haste is made over the prescribed course, which is generally finished in about two-thirds of the interval between examinations, thus giving the remaining third for review and drill. In this latter useless routine of stationary work the animus of study is lost, and the pupil, as has been said, "is simply marking time."

NINTH. These frequent examinations prevent and pervert natural growth. The knowledge gained by hot-house memoriter work is not retained, digested, assimilated, or reproduced. They lead to superficiality, disgust at learning and mental indigestion. Organized uniformity and stereotyped monotony are not good soils for growing brains. The eternal cramming and tortures of our schools is not growth for life and duty, and this examining and examining is the gardener who is always showing us the roots of his growing plants to prove that they are growing. No abiding training for after life - -no habits of self help, self-activity, or self-acquired knowledge, remain from it.

TENTH.-This rote education is a moral evil. Outside of the direct immoral effects before mentioned it is a perversion of charThe dignity, interest and value of knowledge is obscured by self, which is absorbed in the low motive of showing what it can do better than others.

acter.

ELEVENTH. This mechanical pressure of examinations is promoting fearful physical debility. The strength and blood which ought to go to bone and muscle in growing children, is expended in a torturing over pressure. In our schools, the amount of written work is far too great for our children, Impairment of sight, nervous disease, prostration, deficient vitality are insidiously cultivated. By such insensible degrees, is the child's system undermined that parents fail to see its full extent. Overpressure, over-stimulus, nervous anxiety, over-study, the excitment produced by scolding, punishing, and cramming teachers, is not a healthy field for a child's development. And almost entirely this system of things comes from the species of competitive examinations now in our schools.

TWELFTH. The use which is made of the examination figures is degrading and demoralizing to both teachers and pupils. They are tabulated, circulated, compared and made a basis for stimulation and intimidation. They are made to arouse jealousy and strife. They are placed in newspapers to gratify self-love, and made objects of desire. They are used to grade and place in positions of shame, pupils of poor capacity, thus branding the work of the Almighty's hand. They are used to depress the stupid, and over excite the gifted. The evils of this system are far greater than any good which might be derived from it.

Some other Arithmetic.

A Doubter's Defence of his Doubts.

The Theory of Division.

By J. A. MCLELLAN, LL.D., Ontario School of Pedagogy. Author of Applied Psychology, etc.

'N the September number of the POPULAR EDUCATOR, under the heading "Some Arithmetic ", there is an article in which the writer a professor of Method in Cook County Normal School - attempts an exposition of the principles underlying the operation of Division, and pillories the imaginary "doubter" who may venture to question the soundness of his philosophy. I confess myself a doubter—one of thousands it is to be hoped — and I shall give some of the reasons for the doubts that are in me. In doing this in examining the statements, definitions, and illustrations abounding in "Some Arithmetic", I shall try to set forth "Some other Arithmetic " some data and inferences concerning division which I trust may contribute in some degree to a true theory of the process.

The article consists (a) of a sort of general introduction, and (b) of an exposition, chiefly by comments upon a series of problems, of the principles of the division process. I shall devote some attention to (a) and (b), and then (c) advance somewhat more explicitly what is believed to be a common-sense view of the subject. (a) "There are thousands of children" we are told, 'who, if asked what we get when we multiply square feet by feet will answer cubic feet because they have never been made to see that when finding the volume of anything we are simply repeating a certain number of units a certain number of times." He then goes on to show, properly enough, that the child should be clearly taught that there are "layers" of cubic inches repeated a certain number of times. I remark, (1) No such question should be asked. It is the slovenly expression of hazy thought; it is misleading, for it suggests to the child the answer cubic feet: The right answer is; that the question is a mere catch-question suggesting an impossible operation. The supposed answer of the child is indeed wrong; but the wrong answer of the pupil is more excusable than the wrong question of the teacher. (2) "When finding the volume of anything we are simply repeating a certain number of units a certain number of times." Without doubt. But also, in finding any product, are we not simply repeating a given group of units a given number of times? We have here a simple yet sufficient principle which explains the mystery," i. e., of division, but which the writer abandons in the moment of his need to totter about in a very wilderness of error, from which no Moses can deliver him.

(3) Following Col. Parker- indeed, the whole "method" seems to be based on Col. Parker's suggestions about division the writer strongly objects to the word times in the sense of repetition, as tending to perplex the child. "The reader will notice that I say two, four cubic inches and not two times four cubic inches. Because two, four cents is the language of the child, and needs no explanation, while times has to be explained and then often times is not understood. Why will almost fifty per cent of a class say (young pupils) three times naught are three." Now, this idea of times enters into every clear conception of number. The simplest expression of quantity has these two components: the unit of measure, and the "times" (the how many) of the unit of measure. This how many is abstract; for it really expresses the ratio of the units in the quantity to the standard unit; this is the very essence of the conception of number, and abstract tho' it is, a clear grasp of it is absolutely necessary to any fair mastery of the properties of numbers. The term has been used in this sense for hundreds of years; it is as old as what is true in the new education. Both term and idea are familiar in the child's experience. If, after passable teaching, the arithmetical meaning of times still remains a mystery

to any child it is probably because niggard nature has not endowed the poor thing with the minimum thirty ounces of brain. And if "fifty percent" of any class of children possessed of normal brains fail to penetrate the meaning of "times" in such expressions as three times two are six, and have a firm belief in three times naught are three, it is doubtless because they have been reduced to intellectual inanition by the drivel of some new educator. Suth children may be expected to use the cumbrous phrasing "three, four dollars", thirty-four, thirty-five and seven-tenths acres, etc. instead of the simpler expression that has the sanction of the ages, three times four, etc.

--

The last "argument" against "times" is — what shall I say? "I may say three times three apples and have only the same three." “I may,” he says, "take up and put down the same three apples three times, and that is three times the same three apples"! Is this the fallacy of ambiguous meaning or the fallacy of non-sense? Whatever it is, I content myself with affirming that the " wayfaring man" of Scripture, or even his child, could not fail to detect it.

(b) I come now to the more important part of "Some Arithmetic" = that in which is discussed, chiefly by illustrations, the philosophy of division. Let us examine the definitions, examples, and inferences. The writer begins with a definition of division which violates every rule of definition—at least it is inadequate and tautological and after all, his meaning can be gathered only from his examples. However, we cannot expect those to be strong in definition who strenously advocate that no rules, definitions and stated principles shall have place in the text-book of the future. Definitions are troublesome things-they require at least an approach to accurate thinking.

=

"Division is dividing a number into a number of equal numbers, as how many four apples in twelve apples? I say three four apples. I express it thus: 12 apples ÷ 4 apples 3 (four apples)." Again: "How many hats at $4 each can I buy with $12? I say as many hats as there are $4 in $12 which are three four dollars; here my dividend is dollars, my divisor is dollars and my quotient is three four dollars." Once more; "I have of a pie to how many boys can I give pie? In division the dividend and divisor must have the same name. Now we have 41. Surely not one

whole pie, but one one-half pie." And when his imaginary antagonist, "Doubter" suggests that the one in this case, as well as the quotients in other examples, is an abstract number, the answer is, “Oh, what bosh!" The inferences, (some of them formally stated) which he draws from his definition and examples are:

I. In division the divisor and dividend have the same name. The quotient is concrete.

II. In division the quotient always equals the dividend. III. The divisor cannot be greater than the dividend: "8÷8 how absurd."

IV. The divisor can never be an abstract number.

V. Finding the equal parts of a number "is not division; but differs widely from it."

Now, "Doubter's " answer to all this is " 'Oh, what bosh!" But I not only call it bosh, I will prove it bosh. So far, at any rate, as anything self-evident is capable of proof.

I. Had the writer borne in mind the principle given, (apparently stumbled upon) in his introduction, viz: that "in finding the volume of anything we are simply repeating a number of units a certain number of times; recalling, further, the well-known fact that the operation of division is simply the inverse of that in multiplication, he would not be fouud wallowing in a slough of absurdities. The question how often is $4 contained in $12, is the inverse of the question, what is the amount of $4 repeated three times ? The operation in this case is $4 + $4 + $4 = $12, or, using the multiplication table which is but a series of remembered addition results, $4 × 3 = $12; where plainly the three expresses how